FCBD’12: Jim Lee provides art for Free Comic Book Day T-Shirt

DC Entertainment and Diamond Book Distributors unveiled today a custom design for 2012’s Free Comic Book Day t-shirt, illustrated by legendary artist and DC Entertainment Co-Publisher Jim Lee. The image features the Justice League, as seen in the bestselling comic book series written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Lee.

The shirt will be on sale in comic shops on April 11, in advance of Free Comic Book Day on May 5. It will be solicited in January 2012’s Diamond PREVIEWS catalog, and customers are encouraged to preorder with their local comic shop by January 18.

The illustration by Lee is an homage to a classic piece of Justice League art by José Luis García-López.

“It’s an honor to have Jim Lee design 2012’s FCBD Commemorative T-shirt,” said Free Comic Book Day spokesperson Leslie Bowser. “Jim’s artwork featuring the Justice League from DC COMICS-THE NEW 52 will certainly entice a lot of current fans. And it’s all for a good cause, as all proceeds go to our marketing efforts to spread the word about FCBD to new customers.”

The FCBD Commemorative Artist T-Shirt is a growing tradition, with a new artist providing artwork for the special design each year. This year’s shirt is a follow-up to the first two commemorative T-shirts, which featured artwork from Darwyn Cooke and Sergio Aragones in 2011 and 2010, respectively.

ABOUT FREE COMIC BOOK DAY— Celebrating its eleventh anniversary, Free Comic Book Day is an annual event where participating comic book specialty shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their shops. The event is held the first Saturday in May and is the perfect opportunity to introduce friends and family to the many worlds of wonder available at local comic book shops. From super-heroes to slice-of-life to action/adventure and beyond, Free Comic Book Day has a comic book for everyone!

ABOUT DC ENTERTAINMENT—DC Entertainment, home to iconic brands DC Comics (Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash, etc.), Vertigo (Sandman, Fables, etc.) and MAD, is the creative division charged with strategically integrating across Warner Bros. and Time Warner. DC Entertainment works in concert with many key Warner Bros. divisions to unleash its stories and characters across all media, including but not limited to film, television, consumer products, home entertainment, and interactive games. Publishing thousands of comic books, graphic novels and magazines each year, DC Entertainment is the largest English-language publisher of comics in the world.

5 Comments

I’ve been a big fan of Lee since his Marvel days, and I use to suck up anything wildC.A.T. that I could, but it looks like there is something wrong with almost every head in this picture. Wonder Woman most noticably looks like she has the round head of a pre-teen. WTF?

I wonder if Williams did the inks for the artwork. It looks rather rushed and surprisingly flat for a Lee work, although the layout seems to have been from a Garcia Lopez piece, according to the caption, so it might not be all Lee’s fault.